The authors have presented the clinical history of 130 infants with congenital cardiovascular malformations, analysing the causes of deaths in this group of cases. Severe cardio-respiratory failure, related first of all to haemodynamic disturbances, was the most common direct cause of decreases in all age groups. Although the complicating pneumonia undoubtedly enhanced the unfavourable effects of the haemodynamic disturbances, it was rarely considered to be the direct cause of death of children with CHD's.